Spending Thanksgiving Alone, By Choice

I SPENT THANKSGIVING ALONE, by choice, happily, with my cats. For dinner I went to a local bar, a little blue collar place in the small town where I live, and enjoyed perhaps the best Thanksgiving meal I have ever had. The works, turkey, dressing, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and the best green beans I have ever enjoyed. There were perhaps fifteen people there, cheerful, friendly. I had the honor of being chosen to say the prayer, and I came through magnificently, as I always do when leading a public group prayer. I know how to pray to God, by god. Everybody seemed to love it. The bar owner thanked me. I ate an amazing amount of food, which I usually do, on account of the great amount of exercise I get on a daily basis. The bar owner, a friend of mine, invited me to take a plate of food to go, and she didn't have to ask me twice. This is the weekend to pig out, and I believe in tradition. As I chowed down on my second plate of Turkey, into the bar walked a deer, about the size of a small Great Dane, and growing fast, acccording to Mandi. Everybody kept drinking without missing a beat, evidently accustomed to a deer in the room... Twelve years ago I named my stray kitten, Mandi, after the business owner. Both Mandis are alive and doing well, with a new wrinkle or two here and there, just like the rest of us. I invited Mandi to come over to my house and see Mandi. She said she will. Mandi the lady takes in stray critters like I do. Only she goes a bit farther. One of Mandi's adopted cats has her own pet cow, out on the farm. "May Day" is, according to Mandi, a very attentive pet owner. Not long ago a yearling deer showed up near her house on her farm, looking too young to be without its mother, looking like he might need a bit of help. Mandi stuck a milk botttle in its mouth, and it sucked on it hard right behind the bar, on the high powered supplement. Mandi told me that the precious little thing follows her around, and once tried to climb into bed with ther, to snuggle. She didn't say whether she accepted the invitation. I assume she did, knowing Mandi. Mandi knows she will soon have to let him go, on her farm, where he'll have plenty of opportunity to live a long and healthy life, undisturbed by hunters or predators. If the future big buck is smart, Mandi will have a frequent visitor... Hardly a lonely Thanksgiving, and yet, I spent Thanksgiving alone, mostly, with my cats, computer and radio. After all, I was only at the bar for a couple of hours, and chose not to drink, a choice I make with increasing frequency as I approach my seventieth birthday. At home, on my computer, I kept up my campaign to drive Trump out of politics, by impeachment, or whatever. The expressions of skepticism are increasing in number, doubts about my ability to get rid of Trump proliferating, and that's a good sign. It means people are paying attention. I find it humorous, and a bit disgusting, as if these morons need to tell me that it is a nearly impossible project. Haven't they ever tried to do anything hard? Apparently not. I posted on an anti-Trump website that Trump's popularity has reached its peak, and can only decline. His opponents will continue to oppose him, and his supporters, as his policies begin to take effect and harm people, will dwindle in number. Trump's policies will do harm to is supporters as well as his opponents. Word is that some of them are now beginning to realize this, if only dimly. He will not gain support by deporting eleven million people, for instance, but he will lose it. As I explained in a previous essay, he will lose support whether he does or does not do his mass deporting. His policies promise to be so extreme that they will engender extreme reactions, causing loss of support. Trump is now at the zenith of his power and popularity. One of my Trumper friends told me that both he and Trump deliberately mispronounce Kamala Harris's name because they both have no respect for her. I told my friend I have no respect for people who support Trump, and indeed I don't. My next project is to ask him whether he respects Trump, and why. His answer will surely be fascinating, tangled, twisted, and garbled. If and when I get one, I intend to report it here, with analysis and commentary. Maybe he admires convicted criminals. Maybe he is an Al Capone fan. Or maybe his taste runs to Jesse James, or Bonnie & Clyde. Some Trump supporters prefer white collar criminals, others, I assume, lean more toward the blue collar working class villain. It becomes twice as easy and desirable to spend holidays alone when one realizes that half the people in this country either are content to support criminal politicians, or are too stupid not to, or are of such low moral characer and limited intellectual capabiites that they simply dont know the difference. That half of the people in this country see themselves in Trump, seek to emulate Trump, see Trump as a person qualified to be president of the United States makes it twice as easy to stay home, on holidays, or any other day. As Churchill once said: "You can count on the American people to do what is right, afer exhausting all other possibilities. There will come a fine day when we the American people have finally exhausted all other possibilities, numerous though they are, and, regarding Trump and his malignant MAGA movment, will do the right thing. Until then it will remain twice as easy to stay home. When it does finally happen, it will become twice as easy to get out and hang out with people. Until then, as we say, stay safe.